In recent years, a movement has gained traction to replace incandescent light bulbs with lighting fixtures that employ more efficient lighting technologies. One such technology that shows tremendous promise employs light emitting diodes (LEDs). Compared with incandescent bulbs, LED-based lighting fixtures are much more efficient at converting electrical energy into light and are longer lasting, and as a result, lighting fixtures that employ LED technologies are expected to replace incandescent bulbs in residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
Further, there are innumerable types of lighting applications that require light output with different beam shapes or like output characteristics. As such, there is a need for an effective and efficient way to change or modify the beam shape of the light output of an existing lighting fixture, and in particular an LED-based lighting fixture, based on the demands of the lighting application.